Welcome to Auckland’s original ‘Municipal Destructor’. Everyone, like me, know it as Victoria Park Market – a super popular open air market through the 80's to 2000's – a great place to buy your crystals and tie-dies etc! I've always known that it was originally the city rubbish dump – when the city was waaaay smaller). There is more to the story, of course. It was originally created in reaction to a bubonic plague scare in Sydney. For sanitary reasons it was built to burn Auckland’s rubbish and waste while using the heat generated to provide electricity to power the city. Sounds pretty clever eh, and I guess we were plague free. However, we must have been breathing some seriously toxic smoke fumes! That 38 metre tall chimney must have helped a little but don't forget all the horse manure and night carts, they were definitely smellier times. The municipal destructor is now a gentrified place that's home to restaurants and businesses, like the superb Milenta restau...
The Manu Aute Kite Day is part of the Matariki (Maori New Year) celebrations at Orakei Marae. Kite flying was popular with ancient maori and used particularly during Matariki. Kites were believed to make a spiritual connection with the gods.
The sun was out for a change so a great time to check out the impressive kites of all shapes and sizes in action, the most impressive being an enormous stingray at least the size of a bus. A word of warning for those thinking of going next year though - make sure your kite is well sorted in advance - don't do what we did and and turn up with an untested kite that is only interested in crashing headlong into the ground - unless you enjoy being the butt of some good natured kite humour.As well as the kite flying there was moko designing, hangi food and kapa haka performances on offer. We had a great time with the kids building a traditional style kite of toi toi and raupo in the whare kai, but not such a great time trying to fly it - it would need a lot more wind to get airbourne due to it's weight!
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